


A Short Rest

by itstonedme



Series: The Hobbit Chapter Title series [3]
Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 02:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin can get no respect.  This takes place during the principal production of <i>The Hobbit</i>, although liberties have been taken with the timeline.  Follows on two other stories (found <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/647160">here</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/995102">here</a>) that play on the chapter titles of Tolkien's <i>The Hobbit</i>, this being that of Chapter Three.  Feedback: Always welcomed and appreciated.  First posted on LJ <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/89147.html">here</a>.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: Complete fiction, with no disrespect intended to anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Short Rest

"Knackered," Martin utters to no one in particular.

His voice is a hollow shell, just like the barrels they've been bobbing about in all day, to and fro, hither and yon, there and back again. Shooting has now shut down until the morrow due to low light levels, elsewise known as sunset. Although no one yet knows it, they are twenty-four hours from being evacuated due to a flash flood, which is twenty-four hours too far in the future for Martin's protesting muscles, the ones that are _not_ hobbit-sized, not by a long shot, not from the way they are being cranky.

"Quit your braying, ya jess," Graham bellows gruffly, his leather-gloved palm smacking Martin squarely in the middle of his back which only serves to darken the storm cloud hovering over Martin's head. "You're not sporting all this wet padding like the rest of the heroes in this tale."

"Let up on the burglar," Richard tells him from Martin's other flank. "He hasn't had to lug weights around for three months of training. He's frail."

"Piss off, the both of you," Martin mumbles. All he wants is a bit of commiseration, but he should know by now that he's not going to get it from this lot. "I am not in the mood."

"He's not in the mood," Graham mimics over Martin's head to Richard.

"Seriously?" Martin asks, stopping dead in his tracks, fed up with the pair of them right to his teeth and beyond. "Well, you can both piss the fuck off." He makes an abrupt turn towards his trailer. 

"What?" Graham asks when Richard casts him a reproachful eye. "How was I to know it's his time of month?"

Two middle fingers come up either side of Martin's departing back. 

*

There's a knock at the door of Martin's trailer a short while later. "May I come in?" Richard asks, having angled his head in the doorway.

Martin's out of costume, out of makeup, out of feet and and out of steam, lying on the couch with an arm over his eyes, alone now that his team has finished his dismantling and their tidying up. The last thing he wants is company. Company is the complete antithesis of self-pity, so company just won't work. Moreover, the absolute last thing he wants is _cast_ company, especially of the dwarfish kind. He's bloody well tapped out on that front. He feebly lifts the hand hanging over the sofa edge and fires it like a gun in Richard's direction by way of an answer.

Richard steps into the trailer, closing the door behind him. "Yeah," he grinds out slowly. "I suspect I have that coming."

"Really? I don't think there's anything suspicious about it," Martins grumps.

Richard will have to spot him that one. If there is one thing Martin really excels at, it is harboring pissiness. There is no way around it but to stand the storm, let Martin exhaust his peevishness until he's consumed with guilt and begs forgiveness for being such a twat. Hopefully, it'll be a short run around the bases in this particular instance because Richard would like to get home at a decent hour. However, he is here to make amends, and sometimes with Martin, these things can't be rushed.

"I cannot apologize for that overblown Scot, but I certainly can for myself," Richard says. "I shouldn't have pushed when you were clearly not in the pushing mood. I am sorry, Martin."

Martin's chest rises and falls on an enormous sigh. If there is one thing that Richard really excels at, it is projecting sincerity. Sticking pins in Richard's contrition would simply be cruel and self-debasing, from Martin's point of view. He is rather impressed how, very neatly, Richard has managed to shut him down before he even had to a chance to really sink his teeth into it. It's like being robbed of one's slippers by the cutest, most adorable puppy in the litter.

Martin lifts his arm off his eyes and flops it onto the arm rest behind his head. "Thank you," he says. "You are forgiven, as much as I wish we could have strung that out a little longer."

Richard curls a smile up one side of his mouth and pulls a chair out from the make-up table, setting it beside the couch where he straddles it backwards. "We can play act, if you'd like, just to keep it going."

"Enough with the play acting!" Martin shouts to the ceiling before breaking into a laugh. "If I never have to play act again, it will be too soon. Tell me again why we are doing this."

"Because it will make us rich," Richard says, and Martin nods, considering the wisdom of this point. "Because it will keep you employable…"

"I am already employable, thank you very much."

"Because it will make every director chase you down," Richard says.

Martin arches one brow at him and they both burst out laughing. "Tell that to Frodo," Martin grins.

"You are not Elijah," Richard reminds him.

"Thank fuck!" they both roar at the same time because ragging on Elijah is even more fun among all who've enjoyed his return to the set of _The Hobbit_ than ragging on Martin. 

Okay, the friction has passed. 

"So tell me what I can do to make your day better," Richard says.

"Nothing, really," Martin says, closing his eyes and bringing his arm up to cover them again, "except maybe transfer your three months of weight training onto this frail frame. I ache. Everywhere. I am not ready for this."

Richard thinks about this for a moment, then says, "Flip over."

"What?" Martin says, lifting his wrist to peer at Richard one-eyed.

"Flip over. I'll give you a rub down."

Some type of glottal outburst erupts out of Martin. "That's…not necessary, but thank you."

"I'm serious," Richard says, standing up and setting the chair back at the table. "I don't understand when you hear the word "rub" why you become so paranoid. You're beginning to make me feel like a dirty old codger. Come on, over you go. A few minutes under my hands and you'll be right as rain."

"I've always wondered about that," Martin says, because now he is obliged to oblige, thoughts of pins in puppies and being called out colliding like a cosmic storm. He hoists himself up and turns over although slowly because he mustn't look too eager and because, frankly, he truly has started to stiffen up. "How is rain right or wrong anyway? Except in typhoons, I suppose, where it is wrong, definitely, same with hurricanes, and on wedding days, oh!"

Richard has grabbed Martin's hips to shift them over so that he can get one knee between the sofa back while he stays standing on his other leg. "Good," Richard says. "I was hoping that would shut you up. Now arms at your sides, yeah, you can let that one hang. Close your eyes and just relax."

Martin makes a _foof_ sound as Richard curls over him and presses down on his mid-back with both palms, the air rushing out of his lungs. When he does it again, Martin lifts his head. "I was expecting a massage, not a resuscitation."

Richard's large hand gently pushes Martin's face back into the sofa. "Quiet," he tells Martin. "I'm trying to make you slow down your breathing."

Martin sighs heavily and scrunches into the firmness of the sofa cushions. "All right," he mumbles, conceding defeat.

Richard's hands slide up the jersey Martin's wearing to his neck, long fingers curling over his shoulders and begin to ply the muscles, slowly and firmly. Martin finds that it really does feel marvelous, and he settles into the sofa even more. 

"You're all knots," Richard murmurs. 

"Feels wonderful," Martin sighs.

It's quiet for a bit, just the sound of fabric sliding and the occasional satisfied grunt from Martin as a new muscle group gets worked.

"Tell me if I should press too hard."

"Mmmff," Martin mumbles lazily. "S'fine. S'a good idea."

Richard works down Martin's back, taking his time around the spine, curling his fingers around his rib cage and rotating his palms as he moves outward. After several minutes, he stands up and goes to the makeup table, flicking off the lights, and turning on the lamp in the far corner down near the loo. Through his lids, Martin can sense the increased darkness, but he's already drifting into a twilight slumber. When Richard's hands return, he emits a satisfied moan and turns his face towards the sofa back so that the room seems even darker. 

He has actually fallen asleep, only vaguely recalling that somewhere in there he thinks his thighs and calves were massaged, when Richard curls a hand around his shoulder and tells him to turn over. Like a sleep-wakened child, he complies, sitting up and twisting around so that he can recline once more, face turned again towards the sofa back.

Richard lifts the arm that has fallen towards the floor and slowly rotates it with both hands, loosening the shoulder. He repeats it with the other, Martin turning his face to the other side. When Richard's hands close upon his thigh and begin to massage, Martin unconsciously bends the knee of the far leg and flops it against the sofa back so that Richard can work with less restriction.

"Now you're just being a tart," Richard chuckles.

"Fuck off, feels fantastic," Martin slurs, not bothering to open his eyes.

"I told you I would make you feel better."

"The multi-talented Mr. Armitage."

"Star of stage, screen and Winnebago," Richard smiles.

Martin hums his reply. His thoughts are drifting again, this time around the idea that physical massage must release endorphins or something because he's completely willing to let Richard manipulate muscles less than three inches from his bollocks with nary a concern except that he not stop. 

The next thing he knows is that he has surfaced from a light sleep because Richard's voice is at his ear. "All done," Richard is telling him.

"Mmm," Martin smiles, eyes too comfortable to want to open.

"Are you needing a happy ending?" Richard whispers in his ear.

Martin cracks one eye, and fixes it fully on Richard, who is grinning madly. "Fer fuck's sake," Martin says.

"Yanking your chain is so much fun," Richard laughs, both hands up. 

Martin is fully awake now, and starts to sit up, with a great deal more ease and agility, he is quick to note, than twenty minutes before. "I have to say, Richard, that there has been an awful lot of smoke about that…that…possible proclivity coming from you of late."

"Yes, well, as much as you probably wish it were otherwise, there is no fire. Not for you, anyway," he winks.

"There you bloody well go again!"

"I like cultivating an air of mystery," Richard says, picking up his jacket and walking to the door. "Do you need a lift?"

"I'm good. I'll be off in a minute."

"Let me know when you are in need of my hands again." And he's out the door.

Martin listens to Richard's footfalls on the trailer steps and then to the sound of silence sliding like quicksand to fill the void. He really should get up right this minute or he's at risk of falling back to sleep. He needs to find his keys, then his car, then the road before he can find his home, and it's all such a daunting process that he settles for just thinking about it for a while. It was nice that Richard made the effort at amends. He didn't really have to, not Richard, not even that gruff bastard from the highlands, Graham. He knows they mean well; he really needs to be more respectful of how hard everyone is working on this project. He'll need to tell Graham he's sorry for being such a girl today.

He digs into his pocket for his car keys, and maybe he digs a little too deeply because what comes up are not his keys because that's not where he's left them, but instead, the head of his penis through the cotton of the pocket. He hasn't really meant for it to be a fateful meeting, but there it is, right up against his fingers. Hello, old friend. 

He rolls up and kneels forward across the end of the couch, reaching for the trailer door handle and twisting the lock. Then he unwinds backwards slowly and rather happily, running the zipper on his fly all the way down. Maybe a happy ending wouldn't be such a bad idea after all, come to think of it. 

Bloody Armitage. He really can be brilliant in his own way, Martin thinks. Fucking brilliant.


End file.
